Washington County has had 435 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 11 deaths, and 329 people have recovered as of Tuesday. At this week’s Washington County Board of Supervisors’ meeting Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski provided an update on the local COVID-19 situation, “We are seeing an increase in cases age 0 to 17. And we’ve also seen about 100 new cases since the beginning of September. We’ve definitely been seeing a spike.”

Washington County’s 14-day positivity rate was 7.9% as of Tuesday. In the southeast region there were 57 hospitalized COVID-19 patients with 26 people in intensive care and 11 people on ventilators. Statewide as of Tuesday there have been 81,209 confirmed cases, 1,285 deaths, and 59,179 people have recovered for a recovery rate of almost 73%.

The Iowa Department of Public Health is encouraging people to wash their hands frequently with soap and water, practice social distancing with people outside of your household, wear masks in public, and stay home when ill.